How to Turn Negative Press Into A Positive PR Opportunity

Even much-loved businesses that are generally well regarded by the public can suffer bad publicity. Sometimes, it results from something beyond a company’s control, like a false rumor or an unfair bad review. But sometimes, bad PR results from something like a disgruntled employee spilling insider tea or a high-level employee being involved in something scandalous. 

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter; you need a plan to counter that bad press which is all about engaging with your critics. This article will give you an action plan to help turn negative press to positive PR by changing the critics, influencers, journalists, customers, clients, and the public at large’s negative outlook on your brand into something positive. 

What is Bad PR?

Negative PR or bad PR is the spread of news about a brand that is unflattering and damaging to the brand’s identity and reputation. Examples of bad publicity can range from extremely serious PR nightmares like the Tylenol drug tampering scandal in 1982 to the comical like the 2021 Coca-Cola Cristiano Ronaldo “Drink water” Euro2020 press conference (Well, it wasn’t that comical to Coca-Cola as it wiped $4 billion off the company’s market value!).

These are the most common types of bad PR:

1. A false news about the company
2. Misleading facts/statements
3. Employee mistakes/defamation
4. Negative reviews
5. Slander by competitors
6. Dirty secrets disclosure 

Why Should You Deal with Bad Press? 

Wouldn’t it just be better to ignore it? It will die out eventually, right? Maybe. But not before it might do severe damage to your brand. And while the 24-hour news cycle might forget fast, the internet never forgets. Here’s why that matters: 

• The vast majority of consumers, 90%, find local businesses via the internet. When was the last time you looked up a business in the phone book? Exactly. Some of you reading this are probably young enough that you’ve never used or even seen a phone book! 
• We trust other people’s opinions. No one lies on the internet, right? The average consumer will read ten reviews before they feel like a brand is trustworthy. 
• Stars matter! Just over half of people, 53%, will consider patronizing a business with fewer than four stars.
• It’s not just reviews potential customers read. Some 97% of consumers who read reviews also read a business’s response to reviews. 

So you can see why it’s so important to manage your online reputation. And even more critical is crisis management. Uber has had more than a few scandals over the years, including poor treatment of drivers, allegations of sexual assaults from passengers, and surge pricing during crises among them. And that negative publicity has hurt the company’s reputation. 

A survey found that 57% of 1,500 respondents currently hold a negative or neutral opinion of Uber. Before the spate of bad press, 69% of people had a favorable opinion of the company. 

How to Respond to Negative Press

Nearly every brand will suffer a negative public relations event at some point. Sometimes the fallout is well deserved, and sometimes it’s through no fault of the brand; maybe an ex-employee with an ax to grind starts planting malicious, false information on social media or review sites. In the end, it doesn’t matter; it only matters that you respond in a way that stems the bleeding and turns things around. We’re going to deep dive but in order to change negative PR to positive, keep these tips in mind:

• Don’t be defensive
• Be apologetic and humble
• Correct misinformation and offer proof
• Reinforce facts to improve credibility
• Promote the positive sides of your brand

1. Act Fast

The longer you pretend the house isn’t on fire, the more stuff is going to burn. The longer you wait to try and turn the negative press to positive, the harder the job will be. That’s why it’s so important to have a crisis plan blueprint in place before you need it. 

2. Prepare the Spokesperson and Your Team

Typically the point person during crisis mode is the company CEO, but not all CEOs are a good fit for this role. Not for nothing, more than a few CEOs have an arrogance about them and can’t bring themselves to eat humble pie no matter how much the situation is calling for just that. 

The face of the crisis calls for someone who can stay calm in the heat of the moment and whose demeanor is humble and contrite. Anyone in the company who may be talking to the press needs to be briefed and briefed again on the narrative of the crisis management plan. A disloyal or dumb employee can do further damage when handling a crisis. 

Before making any statements, make sure you’ve done your research, know your facts, and have spoken to the whole team. You don’t want any surprises after making a statement, and you want everyone on the team to keep to the same narrative. 

3. Stop the Bleeding 

The public can smell BS a mile away. If the negative PR is the company’s fault, take responsibility for it. Don’t try to hide behind semantics or legalese. Take ownership of the problem and lay out a clear plan to address what happened and ensure it doesn’t happen again. Doing so can help turn the tide, generate goodwill, and rebuild trust. 

4. Don’t Play Offense

When you feel attacked, your instinct can be to attack back. That is the wrong move when you’re trying to get from negative to positive PR, especially if whatever happened is the company’s fault. But you don’t want to come off as too defensive either, which is also a natural response when you’re under attack. Some things are indefensible, so you’re going to have to take it on the chin. 

5. Be Transparent and Authentic

The most critical aspect of crisis management is transparency with the press and the public. There are professional journalists and “citizen journalists” out there, and if you’re lying, someone will find out. If you’re caught in a lie, they will burn your reputation and business to the ground. Remember Watergate? It wasn’t the crime that was so egregious; it was the lies told trying to cover up the crime, and those lies brought an American president down. 

So just don’t; it’s not worth it. 

6. Be Honest and Accountable

People don’t like being played for fools, but people do love accountability, stepping up, and owning a mistake. Admit what happened, layout a plan to address the issue, and outline the steps your company will take to make sure nothing similar happens again. And follow through because people are going to be watching. 

7. Don’t Be Afraid to Confess

If you’re in a position of having to confess, the cat is already out of the bag to some degree. If it’s all out there, playing dumb is disingenuous. If it’s partly out of the bag, it’s better that you be the one to fully disclose what happened than to wait for the bombshell expose! 

Action is easier to manage than reaction. If you come clean, you can better orchestrate the confession and the events that follow. If you wait until someone else exposes you, you’re coming at the situation from a disadvantage.

8. Play to Your Strengths With New Angles

You have to pivot the focus of the story. The press and the public will be focused on whatever the scandal was. The longer you go without commenting, the faster the fire will spread. By shifting the focus, you’ve given yourself a fire break. 

What has garnered your company positive branding in the past? In order to turn negative press to positive PR, find a past positive kernel and turn it into the germ for the next stories spread about your company. 

9. Turn to Your Cheerleaders

Who loves you, baby? Who are the customers, clients, audiences, and influencers who helped get you where you are today? (Or were yesterday before your faux pas). Those people are the ones who can help resurrect your reputation, and they’re critical because people know your employees and PR team are going to spout the company line, but when outsiders with less or no skin in the game rally to your defense, their words carry more weight. 

Postaga lets you run personalized cold email campaigns asking your clients or customers to share their positive experiences with your company. This tactic can really highlight your strengths. It’s vital to utilize influencers, too, because they have a megaphone that can reach a lot of people. Postaga allows you to find those web influencers and influential figures on Twitter and LinkedIn and run a cold email campaign to ask them to publish a review of your business. 

10. Set Up a Crisis Management Action Plan

While each crisis may be different, the correct way to manage and turn a crisis around doesn’t really vary. No matter what happens, the “Four Rs” are the correct response and what you will create your crisis management action plan around:

• Regret: If you regret something, what’s your first step? An apology. But regretting and apologizing for something isn’t necessarily an admission of guilt (although you must fess up if you are indeed guilty). You can regret someone breaking their leg without having been the one to break it! 
• Responsibility: No matter who is to blame, the problem is now squarely in your lap, and it’s your job to fix it. 
• Reform: What steps will you take to make sure nothing similar happens again? Outline these steps to the public. And mean them because the press and public will hold you accountable for following through. 
• Restitution: How will you make it up to those impacted by your crisis? Eventually, a court may decide that, but a legal course could take years and is out of your control. You can’t afford to wait that long, and the optics of being forced to do something for those you wronged or hurt is not a good look. 

To Wrap It All Up

Learning how to change negative PR to positive is something you want to know before you need to know it! You can win the PR wars, but you have to have a carefully crafted plan in place. 

In the end, your company can be much more badly damaged by the fallout from a scandal than from the actual scandal itself. Again, think back to Watergate. Your fault, my fault, his fault, her fault, or nobody’s fault, it doesn’t matter. The crisis happened, and if you want to save your brand, you have to get out in front of it.